I only have a few minutes to share my initial thoughts on this, but I just read the really sad news that Soul Train creator/host Don Cornelius is dead of an apparent suicide. With this morning’s Little Richard piece I wanted to kick off Black History Month with some positive pieces on what black artists in the music world have meant to me. I wasn’t expecting to have to touch on Cornelius in this fashion. You may know that I’m usually a bit of a wiseass when it comes to the whole “RIP” ritual (“Danny Bonaduce, man…RIP.”), but Cornelius and the scene he presented meant a lot to me. To me, he was truly a great…man.
I grew up in the 1970s religiously watching Soul Train on Saturday mornings. In the early-through-mid-’70s the soul hits of the day were my bread and butter. My Mom and uncle were into that stuff. My uncle saw all the top soul performers in their ’60s and early ’70s prime. My Mom loved to dance. My grandparents owned a luncheonette that served a predominantly black factory worker population. As I kid, helping out a bit during the summer and mostly eating into the profits, I got a big kick mixing it up with those guys and their big Afros and muttonchops. Watching the young, hip African-American guys and gals do their thing on Soul Train, to the music that brought so much unity, romance, and hope to my life was an extension of the “Philadelphia Freedom” that was percolating in our city. The fact that the theme song to Soul Train was MFSB’s “The Sound of Philadelphia” only heightened the pride I felt.
I’ve lost that sense of pride and racial unity long ago, not because I’m a hateful, prejudiced man but because circumstances have separated me from a culture that used to be right in the mix with my everyday world. I still get to high five a black man at a Phillies game, but shoot, all those guys who used to let me in on their world are long gone. In the early ’80s, the factories closed down in the Port Richmond section where my grandparents’ luncheonette was located. Radio is segregated and Balkanized like never before. Today, I live in a lilywhite neighborhood, not because I want to get away from other races but because it’s a pretty, old-fashioned town, a stone’s throw from my hometown city, with a strong public school system. It’s the American Dream, but it’s devoid of a part of America I used to know, a part of America that Don Cornelius used to bring into my home each Saturday morning.
My Mom recently unearthed a really twisted essay I wrote regarding my old school’s yearly Martin Luther King Day celebration. This was long before MLK Day was celebrated. Our school was way ahead of the curve on that. However, the day-long celebrations used to bug me a bit, not because I had any beef with MLK and his achievements but because the entire day’s activities seemed to be at arm’s length, so far removed from the living, breathing black guys I used to hang with at the luncheonette. Black and white people mixing freely, cutting up on each other, sharing family stories from the neighborhood.
Modern-day black music (like most new music, I might add) usually leaves me cold. The cursing, the negativity, the sampling… I can’t paint it all as “bad,” but the popular stuff I hear doesn’t speak to me, doesn’t give me that sense of hope and a thriving community that the stuff on Soul Train did. Every other week I see a photo of Rhianna stuffed into short-shorts and a halter top. I quickly recall the first time I really heard of her, when the media was rife with that image of her after her boyfriend, a Chris someone, beat her. I feel like her father when I see her still capitalizing on her moneymaker. I want to tell her to respect herself, find a way to let her music do the talking. Truth be told, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard her music. Maybe she’s using her fine ass as just one tool to bring joy and unity into this world. I hope so. I no longer have Don Cornelius and the Soul Train dancers to introduce her music and spirit into my home.
This dance is for you, Don.
Excellent post, Mod. Thanks.
I second that. Soul Train is responsible for one of my favorite performances of all time, Al Green’s extended version of “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)” in 1974. The groove that kicks in at the 3:50 mark of this clip should go on forever…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ__reKdHFY
I’ll third that. Even though we didn’t have Soul Train over here in its heyday, the best of series was shown many years too late on Channel 4 in the 80s (if I recall correctly) and I used to really get on down to it, thinking that if it had been shown over here a decade or so earlier that life would have been a whole lot more fun and, for musical nerds like me, more interesting.
Sad news indeed. I remember rushing home from some Saturday morning sporting event as an adolescent to catch Soul Train. Those cats taught this suburban caucasian nerd how to dance.
During one show I though I was the only one in the house. I was movin’ and groovin’ in front of the set, trying like hell to mimic those cool moves from the weekly line dance. All of a sudden I turn around, and there’s my father shaking his head.
His next line was a keeper and one that I was proud to agree with:
“Sometimes I think you were born the wrong color!”
That is terribly sad and really a loss. This white guy raised in the whitest state in the union benefited from and was entertained by a look into a different cultural world in the 70s, and I’m not the only one. The “race problem” in America is not solved but people like Cornelius helped move it along.
Thanks for the personal reminiscence, Mod. I’ve read enough here to know you come by it honestly. I never caught any soul/funk influences in your early band work; not that I was even looking for it in the late ’80’s. I always thought Andy was a little “blacker” than the reedy-voiced college-rock singers of the time, but I can’t give you any credit for that.
Ha, lord no, I’m not musically sophisticated enough to incorporate ’70s soul into our music. Motown, yes, in a big way. Our first “hit” started out as me trying to figure out a Four Tops song before I gave up and made what little I could figure out my own song.
Great story!
Aw, man, give me that JB’s clip over an entire season of Dancing With The Stars and So You Think You Can Dance? any day of the week…
It really surprised me to hear about this. I always thought Don Cornelius was about the coolest guy in the world. I watched it for awhile, until I decided I really liked guitars. He always had the acts that it seemed to me I had just heard for the first time the day before, or it was the first time on his show. Then those songs would be the chart toppers for the next several weeks, at least.
I think I remember seeing Earth, Wind and Fire, David Bowie, Kool and the Gang and Disco Tex and the Sex O Lettes on there. Not all the same show, those are just ones I think I remember. I bet I saw Rufus do Tell Me Something Good on there. Man, I really loved that song when I was a kid!
That Al Green clip is the total antithesis of the first time I saw him. I don’t know if I’ve ever told this tale on RTH. It was back around 1985 and Green was the Reverend Al. He was playing the Schubert Theatre in New Haven. I knew it would be all non-secular but I expected something like a gospel version of this clip.
The venue held a couple thousand people and was packed. My then-girlfriend, now-wife and I were in the front row on the side and were pretty near the only white folks in the audience which had a lot of older heavyset black women all dressed up in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and ready to do some serious testifying.
The night started with a minister coming out, do a little pump-priming, and introducing a gospel choir of about 20 voices who were great. Then there was a long long wait broken up by the minister coming out, apologizing, explaining that Al had been delayed but would be out “shortly”.
Finally, he did come out, high as a kite. He “performed” for about a half-hour, never completing a single song, and having next to no relationship with the microphone. From our seat we could hear him even without the mic but I’m not sure that was much of an advantage. The band members kept looking at each other, shaking their heads, at a loss as to how to follow.
Before the half-hour was up, all those women were up on the feet, booing the Reverend like crazy.
After Al gave up and walked off stage, the minister came out, apologized, and introduced the gospel choir for another set.
A disappointing but memorable night.
Thank you for the piece, Mod. I always enjoy reading about your history and connection to music.
I wish I had grown up watching Soul Train. I don’t know whether it was an AZ thing or my family thing but we never watched it. To this day, Mr. Royale will talk about it and all the hits he heard watching it and most I’d never heard up. Maybe it was an East Coast vs. West Coast thing. I’ve come to learn more about and really enjoy 70’s soul through both Mr. Royale and the posts from this site.
Mod’s experience is interesting. I didn’t really watch Soul Train. My history with black music is that I only get into it long after the fact. I love 60s Motown now, but at the time I thought it was ok, but I wished it didn’t take so much radio time away from white guitar rock.
To me the great thing is Soul Train’s survival on youtube. Not just the artists but the dancers live on. It’s a real example of cultural history breathing life into contemporary culture.
A black cartoonist wrote this week that Soul Train was the only place on TV you could tune in and see black people just having FUN.
It may still be.
I’m bummed that I didn’t know this was taking place a mere 6 miles from my house the other day. In honor of Don Cornelius, Philadelphia set the record for longest Soul Train Dance Line. Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ3-7LMN7wM
And if you need a dose of Philly Pride, check out Mayor Michael Nutter’s impassioned intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnr2SV8HpsA